Elon Musk is pulling away from his plans to launch a new political party, just weeks after telling his 200 million X followers that the America Party would be his answer to a broken two-party system.
According to Wall Street Journal, Elon has started telling people close to him that he doesn’t want to risk upsetting high-ranking Republicans by splitting the conservative vote, especially not with Donald Trump back in the White House and JD Vance positioned as his likely successor.
In private conversations, Elon admitted that going ahead with the party would strain his relationship with Vance, now the vice president. He’s stayed in touch with Vance in recent weeks and has even floated the idea of backing him financially if he runs in 2028.
Elon dumped nearly $300 million into Republican campaigns in 2024, and people familiar with the conversations allegedly say he plans to do the same for Vance.
Elon backs out of calls and sidelines political party effort
In late July, Elon canceled a scheduled call with a group that specializes in getting third parties off the ground, and the Journal said his team told participants the meeting was scrapped because Elon wanted to keep his focus on his companies.
That meeting would’ve helped the new party figure out how to get on the ballot in critical states. But instead of following through, Elon and his team stopped reaching out to key organizers and advisers.
Even some of his closest political allies from the 2024 election cycle haven’t had any conversations with him about building a new party. Many of those same advisers had helped Elon funnel money into Trump’s re-election campaign through his America PAC, which spent heavily in swing states like Pennsylvania.
Republican consultants warned that if those same people were seen helping Elon start a new party, they’d likely get blacklisted by Trump’s circle. That risk seems to have kept most of them from engaging. And Elon hasn’t done anything to bring them back in.
The Libertarian Party tried to pitch itself as a ready-made platform, offering to help him avoid starting from scratch. But according to Steven Nekhaila, chair of the Libertarian National Committee, Elon never responded. “It’s almost an eerie silence,” Nekhaila said. “It doesn’t seem like anything has been in action, neither at the state level or at the ground level.”
Vance hopes Musk stays close, while Trump and Elon cool off
The decision not to move forward, for now, helps Republicans. Third parties tend to bleed votes from major players, and a Musk-backed America Party could’ve drawn support away from Trump allies.
That includes Vance, who said earlier this month that breaking from Trump and the conservative movement would be “a mistake.” He told The Gateway Pundit, “So my hope is that by the time of the midterms, he’s kind of come back into the fold.”
Trump and Elon were at odds earlier this year after Elon criticized Trump’s spending package and claimed the former president wouldn’t have won without his support, as Cryptopolitan reported earlier.
At the time, Elon was still working in the Trump administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
He resigned in late May, and amid his public breakup with the president, threatened to support primary challenges against Republicans who backed the spending bill. Since then, both men have dialed it back.
Elon stopped criticizing Trump publicly on X, and Trump posted on Truth Social that he wanted Elon and his companies to “thrive,” calling their success a good thing for the country.
Trump had previously raised the idea of killing off SpaceX’s federal contracts, but after a review, the administration said most of those deals were too important, especially for the Pentagon and NASA. In fact, SpaceX could now benefit from a new executive order that speeds up rocket launch permits.
Meanwhile, others who had shown support for Elon’s party idea haven’t heard anything either. Andrew Yang confirmed he had talks with Elon’s team about the America Party but hasn’t shared any details. Mark Cuban, who supported the idea after Elon’s July announcement, told The Wall Street Journal that he hasn’t had any conversations with Elon or his team since then.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/elon-gives-up-on-launching-political-party/
